30 FALCONID.E. 



is made of a specimen that was sliot on Bungay Common. 

 By the kindness of Mr. Allis of York, I have heard that a 

 very fine adult specimen was shot within a few miles of that 

 city on the 15th March 1837. One of the specimens 

 now in the Museum of Newcastle-upon-Tyne was killed in 

 Northumberland ; and Pennant possessed one that was shot 

 near Aberdeen. Mr. Low, in his Fauna of Orkney, consi- 

 dered the Gyr-Falcon as only an occasional visitor : Mr. 

 Bullock, when he visited the Orkneys, saw one sitting 

 on a stone wall in the island of Stronsa ; but its appear- 

 ance was not observed by more recent Ornithologists. 

 As before mentioned, its true habitat appears to be in 

 higher northern latitudes, — Norway, Iceland, Greenland, 

 Siberia, Russia, and occasionally the north of Germany ; but 

 apparently in no country more plentiful than in North Ame- 

 rica. Dr. Richardson says, " We saw it often during our 

 journeys over the Barren Grounds, where its habitual prey is 

 the Ptarmigan, but where it also destroys Plover, Ducks, 

 and Geese." 



Major Sabine, in his Memoir on the Birds of Greenland, 

 says, " The progress of this bird from youth, when it is quite 

 brown, to the almost perfect whiteness of its maturity, forms 

 a succession of changes in which each individual feather gra- 

 dually loses a portion of its brown colour as the white edging 

 on the margin increases in breadth from year to year." Dr. 

 Richardson also, who has had favourable opportunities for 

 observing this species at different ages, says, " The young 

 Gyr-Falcons show little white on their plumage, being 

 mostly of a dull brown colour above. As they grow older, 

 the white margins encroach on the brown, which becomes 

 merely a central blotch, indented on each side by the white ; 

 while in aged birds the plumage is mostly pure white, varied 

 only by a few narrow transverse bars on the upper parts." 



